The present invention relates to an arrangement for extending service support in a communications system, especially a telecommunications system, said system comprising distributed hardware and software components which interact in order to provide services to one or more users.
More specifically the present invention has been developed in connection with such an arrangement in order to provide improved service interface for mobility-based applications.
By application is meant a distributed system consisting of a set of objects that interact and make use of the functions supported by the Distributed Processing Engineering, DPE, to perform certain functions. An application is designed and implemented by an application designer.
When an application is configured and installed in the telecom system domain or Service Provider system,. it becomes a service to be offered to the user. Several applications can be combined and offered as one service to the user.
Further, a service is brought to the user through a session, the session concept being adopted for example from the TINA service architecture, but possible with some different interpretation.
Briefly, a session may be defined as a period of activity that a user has with the telecom system domain or service provider domain.
A mobility-based application is a type of application which was born with the introduction of mobility in the telecom system domain and which uses actively mobility related information in the realisation of its mission. In fact, without mobility such an application is meaningless.
Examples of such mobility-based application are taxi dispatch, fleet management, public safety, trucking, etc. Other mobility-based applications are information services to mobile users. For instance, traffic information or weather reports will be filtered based upon the current position of the user, while stock information will be filtered using the user profile. Another example of information services is a local Yellow-pages service extended with on-line information such as movies currently playing at local theatres or merchandise on sale at the local supermarket [IB94].
There is no such well-defined service interface for mobility-based applications in current mobile networks and systems such as GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication), UPT (Universal Personal Tele-communication), etc. and definitely not in the future mobile distributed system.
An object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement whereby the application design can be improved in relation to prior art.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement wherein the information contained in a mobile distributed system can be utilised in a far more effective manner.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement by which a service interface is offered by a mobile distributed system to mobility-based applications.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide such a service interface which contains a set of operations that any mobility-based applications can request in order to obtain for example desired location information.
The above objects are achieved in an arrangement as stated in the preamble, which is characterised by the features as stated in the enclosed patent claims.
Further features and advantaged of the present invention will appear from the following description taken in conjunction with the enclosed drawing, as well as from the appending patent claims.